A United States man has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison for advising North Korea on cryptocurrency trading, in contravention of United States sanctions.
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Virgil Griffith Advised North Korea on How to Use Crypto to Evade Sanctions
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Increasingly stringent sanctions have been imposed on North Korea in recent years to try to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
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Griffith is the creator of WikiScanner, a tool that unmasks people who anonymously edit Wikipedia entries.
Virgil Griffith, 39, was sentenced Tuesday local time after pleading guilty last year to conspiracy.
He admitted to presenting a cryptocurrency conference in Pyongyang in 2019, even after the US government denied his request to travel there.
A known hacker, Griffith also developed "cryptocurrency infrastructure and equipment within North Korea," prosecutors wrote in court documents.
At the 2019 conference, he advised more than 100 people, including several who appeared to work for the North Korean government, on how to use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions and achieve independence from the global banking system.
Both the United States and the UN Security Council have imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on North Korea in recent years to try to curb its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
The US government amended sanctions against North Korea in 2018 to bar "a US person, wherever located" from exporting technology to North Korea.
Prosecutors said Griffith acknowledged that his presentation amounted to a transfer of know-how to conference attendees.
"Griffith is a United States citizen who chose to evade his own country's sanctions in order to provide services to a hostile foreign power," prosecutors wrote.
"He did so knowing that that power, North Korea, was guilty of atrocities against its own people and has threatened the United States citing its nuclear capabilities."
Defense attorney Brian Klein described Griffith as a "brilliant Caltech-trained scientist who developed a curiosity bordering on obsession" with North Korea.
"He saw himself, albeit arrogantly and naively, as acting in the interests of peace," Klein said.
"He loves his country and never meant to do any harm."
Klein added that he was disappointed with the 63-month prison sentence, but "pleased that the judge recognized Virgil's commitment to moving on with his life productively, and that he is a talented person who has a lot to contribute."
